


The Grind

by thegreymoon



Series: Kinkalot 2019 [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), Jealous Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), M/M, Modern Era, Past Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Past Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 10:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20274448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreymoon/pseuds/thegreymoon
Summary: Arthur doesn't like it when Merlin goes to taverns without him.





	The Grind

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Kinkalot's](https://kinkalot.livejournal.com/) [Bonus Challenge 1: Dirty Dancing!](https://kinkalot.livejournal.com/2690.html)

The rhythm throbbed all around him. This was what they called music in this loud, carnal new age. It permeated everything and the ground itself vibrated under his feet in time with the drum. It crawled up his limbs, infiltrated his blood, and even the rising headache pulsed with the beat. It was in the air, he was breathing it in along with the sweat, smoke and all the cloying stench of hundreds of living, writhing bodies pressed together in a closed, crowded space. The bright, unnatural lights flashed on and off in the otherwise pitch-black darkness — blue, green, purple and pink. 

_Magic_, his father’s voice whispered inside him and the ingrained dread stirred awake before he resolutely stomped on it. _It isn’t magic, Arthur, it’s electricity, _Merlin had told him, so he took a deep breath, set his jaw and looked around. A shocking display of obscenity was everywhere he turned and he felt it like a punch to the gut.

Merlin was right, he was not ready for this.

The traitors had tried to explain where they were going and why Arthur should not come with them. It had not gone down well because, apparently, the man he loved frequenting taverns _without him_ was going to be a thing in this new life as well.

_“It’s not a tavern, Arthur,”_ Merlin had said, all patient and strained. It drove Arthur up the wall.

_“You just said it’s a place with music that serves alcohol, where people go to unwind! It’s a tavern!”_

_“It’s a nightclub.”_

Arthur didn’t appreciate the distinction. Merlin’s frequent escapades into nights of drunken revelry that Arthur wasn’t invited to during their years in Camelot were a long-standing thorn in his side. He had done plenty of yelling and throwing things at the time, but never actually taken serious steps to put a stop to them, nor had he ever dared to pry further. Why did Merlin need to go? Was the alcohol in the King’s chambers not good enough for him? What did he get out of the company of people other than Arthur? Who was it that gave him what Arthur couldn’t? He'd been too afraid of the answers to find out and stewed in his misery in silence. Besides, Merlin always came back to him in spite of his fears; filthy, exhausted and a little worse for wear, but _his_ once more, and Arthur was too pathetically happy each time to question it.

_“Arthur, I’m not going there for fun. Somebody is distributing magic-laced mollies at the venue and I need to find out who! I have never seen anything like it before, not on this scale, anyway!”_

Of course, in the months since he’d been back, Arthur had found out that the taverns had also been a big lie and that none of the miserable images vividly floating in his head about what Merlin was up to and with whom were founded in reality. Merlin had (on the rare occasions that had ended in disasters) only ever frequented taverns with him, or stopped by at dawn to drag a drunken Gwaine home.

_“Magic-laced… mollies?”_

_“Magically enhanced hallucinogens. The regular ones were bad enough, but these are ten times as addictive, ten times as destructive! There are dozens of cases at the clinic, patients walking around like zombies, their brains fried._

It had turned out that Merlin sneaking off to fight evil without him was an even worse betrayal than him sneaking off to have fun. Agreeing not to bring up old resentments was easier said than done, and Arthur was still furious and upset. 

_“I can help!”_ he'd tried and Merlin had laughed, desperate and hysterical.

_“I’m not taking you to an underground gay club. Look at you!”_

_“Yeah, princess, they would eat you alive,”_ Gwaine drawled from his corner, hung-over but very much amused. The death glare Arthur had sent him would have shrivelled lesser men to dust, but Gwaine just laughed. The fact that Gwaine had already been there with Merlin — and was such a huge hit, the club manager had offered him a job on the spot — did not help matters. 

The veil between the worlds was ripped when Arthur awoke in Avalon, releasing his first-chosen knights back to him. They'd sworn fealty before the Fates, Merlin had said. There was powerful magic involved. They were bound to him for eternity and Death could not hold them while the Once and the Future King reigned in the mortal world. Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, Percival, and most importantly, Guinevere. Leon was still there too, for he had drunk from the Cup of Life, even though his loyalties had shifted centuries ago from Arthur to his Queen. 

_Gay._

That was another relevant new word Arthur had learned since coming back. It was what he and Merlin were. Suddenly, a lot of things about his sex life made sense. Apparently, that had a name. Apparently, he and Merlin could now live together, sleep together, get married and adopt kids. In his most desperate times at Camelot, he'd retreat to a hopeless fantasy of running away from his kingdom and all its responsibilities, but even when he left everything behind in his sad, secret dreams, Merlin was always there with him. It was just the two of them, in a hidden cottage, deep in the woods or far up in the mountains, living a quiet life. Apparently, that was now an option and it had rocked his entire world. He’d had it all backwards. Merlin was meant to be his spouse and Guinevere his best friend, and how the fuck was he supposed to have known that? He hadn't even realised you could be friends with a woman, be close to her without marrying her or bringing her disgrace. Nobody had told him, and there had been no precedent that he knew of. The very idea still sounded so... improper, and he had to have a Queen, he had to have heirs. Or so he thought. She deserved more than the lonely crown he had given her, but if one good thing had come out of their marriage, it was that it had put her on his throne. She was much wiser, more capable than him, and how he longed for her, to back him up in this, but she avoided rooms in which Lancelot was present.

_“Arthur, it’s a seedy place,”_ the cheater said carefully, all sensible and worried. _“You would draw too much attention, and we need to stay unnoticed.”_

Of course, Lancelot was going with Merlin and Arthur realised he was full-on shaking without knowing when it had started. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white and deliberately timed his breathing to calm down.

_“You would know all about seedy places, wouldn’t you, Lancelot,”_ he ground out and his First Knight looked wretchedly at the floor. 

It was unfair, Arthur had enough self-awareness to realise it, but not enough self-control to rein it in. Merlin had finally told him the full story, 1500 years too late, and Arthur now knew that Lancelot had not seduced the woman his King was supposed to marry while he sat and feasted at his table, laughing and lying to his face. But he'd known Merlin’s secret from the beginning, and somehow, that was even worse. Lancelot was deep in Merlin's confidence, Merlin had shared things with him that he hadn't with Arthur, he had gone on adventures with him, laughed with him and sought comfort from him, and Arthur couldn't stand it. The irony of only now finding out what true jealousy was did not escape him and he knew he owed his wife an apology.

_“Enough!”_ Merlin cried, putting a stop to Arthur's accelerating emotional spiral. _“We have no time for this!”_

Pleading, he'd taken Arthur’s face in his long-fingered hands. He had kissed him softly on the mouth. _Please, Arthur, please! Just this time! I will take you tomorrow! I will take you next week! We will go on a date! Just stay here tonight!_

It was hard to stay angry with Merlin. When it came to him, Arthur knew that he was weak. He had sulked in the corner while the three of them got ready. He had watched them leave, sick of being manipulated and told what to do. All his life, there were bigger things at play that required his sacrifice, discipline and self-denial. He'd believed it, taken on the burden. He had pushed, strained and restrained himself. There were no breaks, no relief. He could never have what he wanted, be what he felt inside. Nothing was ever enough, and look how well that had turned out! Everything he had ever been told was a lie and he was done listening. He was certain that all this was punishment for his blind subservience, anyway. He'd rarely questioned what he was told and on the rare occasions when he had, bad situations had quickly devolved into full-blown disasters. He'd taken it as a sign to stop prying and it had been so convenient because facing what he had done, what he had been complicit in, was painful and huge. He now knew his obedience had been cowardice all along, but he would not be making the same mistakes twice.

Except Merlin was not his father.

Arthur had learned the hard way that shit went down when he didn’t listen to Merlin, even when he didn’t understand why. Merlin knew things he didn’t and was secretly wise. Merlin made the hard choices and followed through. Merlin was the bravest, strongest man he had ever known. Merlin was the only one he could trust. But then again, Merlin had lied to him too and Arthur was tired of him sneaking around, hiding things from him — things he didn’t think Arthur could handle, while he went off and had an entirely separate life away from him, an entirely separate identity that Arthur never got to see — when there had been no part of him Merlin was not privy to.

Enough was enough.

He’d put on one of Merlin’s jackets with a hood — _hoodie, Arthur, it’s called a hoodie_ — and gone out right after them. Finding the stupid underground tavern was easy. He knew the name of the place, and the magic mirror Merlin had given him had maps — _Arthur, for the last time, it’s not a magic mirror, it’s a smartphone!_

Arthur didn’t care what he called it, he knew a magic mirror when he saw one and he was shocked by how easy to come by they were. Everyone had one, from the smallest of children to the weird old granny living down the street, who helped Merlin mix his noxious concoctions he was in trouble with the law enforcement for. It showed you your own face when you wanted it to — _it’s a front-facing camera, Arthur! Look, it can take your picture! It’s called a selfie! — _but also the face of the person you were talking to, even if they were miles and miles and miles away. That was what magic mirrors did — _Arthur, it’s just technology — _and Arthur had had no patience to argue semantics with him.

The maps had been one of the first things Merlin had shown him, right around the time when he’d had his first panic attack. You could see the entire world in the magic mirror and Arthur had been spellbound, the mental health crisis instantly forgotten. Merlin had shown him where Camelot had stood. They hadn't gone there yet, but Arthur knew he could if he wanted to. Even with the new roads stretching like poisonous cobwebs all over his kingdom, the land was still the same. He could find the spot where his city used to be blindfolded because there was no map more accurate than the one in his heart.

The magic mirror had a little marker showing where you were, and a little arrow pointing to where you wanted to go. It was incredibly convenient, and Arthur had asked Merlin if he would ever introduce him to the members of _the Google_ — which he understood to be a ridiculously named alliance of sorcerers responsible for powering the magical devices that were distributed to the non-magical public — and Merlin had laughed and laughed. In hindsight, Arthur realised that he should probably have been offended, but it had been the first time he'd seen Merlin laughing freely since he’d been back. This new Merlin was dark and withdrawn, with haunted eyes full of pain, and Arthur hadn’t even realised how much he longed for the old one before this had coaxed him to the surface.

The tavern —_the nightclub, Arthur, the nightclub!_— was an ugly sight from the street, nothing but an entrance and stairs leading into a black hole. There was a long line of people winding down the street and around the corner, waiting to be let in and being turned away. The place was long full, but as Arthur approached, trying to assess and come up with a plan, the bouncer looked him up and down, leered at him and let him pass.

Arthur hated the inside even more than the outside — the noise they called music, the hundreds of people crawling and grinding against each other in some altered state of mind, supposedly _dancing_. Arthur knew what dancing was and this combination of unarticulated, spastic movements and simulations of sex acts was not it, but no wonder Gwaine felt right at home here. The entire scene looked like the beginnings of a ritual orgy and the idea of Merlin in all this seething mess was unbearable. He struggled to breathe past the constriction in his chest and forced his head to clear. To act. He had been a king, for fuck’s sake, he had led armies and waded through carnage, he did not let emotions get the better of him. Especially the dark, huge, overwhelming ones. He could handle this.

He forced himself to move, pushing through the sweaty bodies, seeking higher ground. He could barely make out anything through the haze, smoke and flashing lights. He was never going to find Merlin simply by _looking_.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, shook himself, made his mind go blank, then looked again, this time, with the hidden inner eye he had only learned to use after coming out of Avalon. He had been blind his entire life, but now, a new world had opened up to him.

The living auras of the people inside glowed, heightened and brilliant, though none of them were quite like Merlin’s. Merlin walked around hidden, shrouded in impenetrable shadow, but he could not hide from Arthur, not anymore. Arthur saw his magic clearly, bright and healthy and blue, trailing after him like a train, sinking into the ground under him like ancient roots and glowing around his head in a halo of silver and white. He was so beautiful, for a moment, Arthur forgot to breathe.

When he came to himself, he was gratified to find that Merlin was not taking part in the debauchery. He was a dark, solitary figure to the limited human eye, alert and deliberate in the midst of the drunken throng. Arthur was sure it was a spell, because the frothing mass unconsciously parted for him as he passed — not touching him, but not seeing him there either. Arthur rushed forward, pushing people out of his way with far less subtlety and grace, followed by shouted curses and threats of violence.

“Merlin!” he called in vain. There was too much noise, Merlin would never hear him.

_“Merlin!” _he felt himself reach for him with his entire being. _“Merlin!!”_

It was as if he had called out to him with his mind and to his surprise, Merlin suddenly stopped and turned. The crowd parted, compelled by an invisible force, leaving a clear path between them.

_“Merlin!”_ Arthur repeated, looking straight into Merlin’s wide, shocked eyes. _“You can hear me!”_

_“I can hear you!” _Merlin said, but his mouth didn’t move. Arthur heard him as if he was speaking right inside his skull and he reached for him again, not thinking what he was doing. He ached for him and all his longing spilled over and into Merlin’s head. He didn’t even have time to panic at the prospect of everything this mind-meld implied because Merlin’s magic overwhelmed him, giddy and overjoyed, drowning him in love. He stumbled forward the few feet that separated them, straight into Merlin’s arms.

“I can hear you,” Merlin said out aloud against his lips and he was crying, because, of course, even fifteen hundred years later, he was still a gigantic girl.

_“I love you,”_ Arthur’s mind supplied directly, because he was apparently an even bigger one, now without the luxury of a brain-to-mouth filter. He only had a second to be mortified before Merlin’s face melted into a mad, happy grin, the tears still streaming down his face.

_“Clotpole,”_ he said. _“I love you too!”_

Arthur held him tight as the crowd closed in again. The screaming noise of the modern age throbbed in the ground, in the air, in the squashed, swaying bodies all around them. Everything was wrong about this new world. It was overcrowded, obnoxiously loud and unnaturally bright. Nothing made sense, but Merlin was in his arms, holding him back, and wrapping him in his unending, long-suppressed love.

And for the first time in his life, Arthur finally felt right. 


End file.
